10 DEPRECIATION OF THE EAGLE. 



The illustrious Franklin, however, deplored the choice 

 made by his colleagues and compatriots. Writing to a 

 friend in 1783, he declared that he would have given the 

 world the eagle had not been selected as the representative 

 of his country, for he is a bird of a fierce and shameless 

 character, who cannot gain his livelihood honourably. 

 He may frequently be seen, from the top of a decayed 

 tree, carefully watching other rapacious birds in their 

 aquatic depredations, with the view of profiting by a 

 booty which he is too slothful to gain through his own 

 exertions. The moment that one of these birds has seized 

 on a fish, which he destines for his brood, the wretch 

 descends upon him like a thunderbolt, and audaciously 

 snatches it from his beak. He is not the happier for all 

 his swiftness in flight and his supremacy over the other 

 inhabitants of the air. Like the majority of robbers and 

 vagabonds, he lives in poverty, solitude, and wretched- 

 ness. In Franklin's belief he was a scoundrel of the worst 

 kind, whom the tiniest wren, frequently no larger than a 

 nut, does not fear to attack with the greatest courage, and 

 to expel from his neighbourhood. The choice of the eagle 

 was not, then, a felicitous one ; and it is to be regretted 

 that the founders of American independence, at whose 

 head was a hero so pure-minded as Washington, did not 

 choose a more appropriate emblem for the blazon of their 

 republic. 



The letter in which Franklin recorded his sentiments 

 was shown to me by a celebrated Philadelphian book- 

 seller, who preserved it in his collection of autographs ; 

 and I confess I am entirely of the opinion of that eminent 

 statesman. My bookseller knew me to be a passionate 

 votary of the chase, and, at my request, he furnished the 



